Bulgarian President approves caretaker cabinet, will decree election date
Bulgarian President Roumen Radev approved on August 26 the caretaker cabinet proposed by Dimitar Glavchev – who will have a second term as caretaker Prime Minister – and said that he would decree October 27 as the date of the early parliamentary elections.
Glavchev proposed a caretaker government largely the same as the incumbent one, though the changes included excluding controversial figure Kalin Stoyanov as caretaker Interior Minister.
Instead, that portfolio is to be held by another controversial figure, national police chief Atanas Ilkov.
We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria co-leader Kiril Petkov is among those who have said that behind Ilkov’s nomination are GERB-UDF leader Boiko Borissov and Movement for Rights and Freedoms co-leader Delyan Peevski.
Petkov said on Facebook that GERB-UDF’s Maria Gabriel had proposed Ilkov for the Interior Minister post at the time of the failed negotiations on a government earlier in 2024.
Petkov said that at the time “we rejected him because of Lyaskovets and Peevski, of course”. Lyaskovets is a reference to a March 2014 botched operation in which a police officer died and three others were wounded.
Ilkov was dismissed over that operation, but won reinstatement in court.
Radev earlier rejected a proposed caretaker cabinet that included Stoyanov, in whom most parliamentary groups had no confidence because they did not believe he could play an appropriate role in the organisation of early parliamentary elections.
The other changes in the second Glavchev cabinet will be deputy foreign minister Ivan Kondov taking over the Foreign Minister portfolio, currently held by Glavchev, and Transport Ministry legal department head Krassimira Stoyanova taking over the Transport Minister portfolio from Georgi Gvozdeikov.
Radev said that the second Glavchev caretaker cabinet would take the oath in Parliament on August 27, and that at the same time he would decree October 27 as the date for the early parliamentary elections.
The October 27 elections will be the seventh time in just more than three years that Bulgarians elect a legislature.
Radev told Glavchev: “I want to congratulate you for listening to the public’s calls to reduce tension and hold fair elections”. This was an apparent reference to the omission of Stoyanov from the proposed interim administration.
(Photo: president.bg)
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